26 March 2009

Facebook privacy RIP as RIPA directive proposed?

Reports that the British Government plans to store data from private messages sent and received online through social networking sites have, unsurprisingly, elicited a lively response from the online community.

Jason Brown hailed the proposed policy as the breakthrough of "Database Britain" on Whipped Senseless, while Politics website's Ian Dunt described the Government's approach as "like a rat hooked on heroin. It just can't get enough of our personal information."

According to the Telegraph, the new legislation would see information "stored on a central database as part of the Government's proposed Intercept Modernisation Programme."

European Union directive 2006/24/EC has already proposed that ISPs in member states be statutorily obliged to retain data "generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks" for one year.

The Home Office has defended the move, citing a necessity to remain conversant with modern communication patterns in response to criminal intent. A spokesman told the Telegraph: "We have been clear that communications revolution has been rapid in this country and the way in which we collect communications data needs to change so that law enforcement agencies can maintain their ability to tackle terrorism and gather evidence."

Indeed, some within the Government believe the move is not nearly far enough reaching. Vernon Coacker, Minister of State for Policing, Crime and Security, told Commons Committee MPs: "Social-networking sites, such as MySpace or Bebo, are not covered by the directive.

"That is one reason why the government are looking at what we should do about the Intercept Modernisation Programme (IMP), because there are certain aspects of communications which are not covered by the directive."

Ian Dunt proposed the high likelihood that "the Government will throw the social networking idea into RIPA" - the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) - which, he claims, answered up to half a million requests on behalf of the security services for private data in 2008 alone.

Vocal protests have flown up in opposition across the board; No 10 already has an e-petition calling for the proposed legislation to be stopped. Facebook too hosts a number of vitriolic groups calling for the directive to be halted; No to the Government Monitoring Facebook and Stop the British Government from Monitoring Facebook are two such examples.

Civil liberties groups have also expressed outrage, claiming that the proposal would allow unreasonable access by Government officials into the private lives of law-abiding Britons. With around half the UK population possessing membership of at least one social networking site, it would seem that our privacy and civil liberties stand much to lose, should the scheme go ahead.

Despite the Government's pleas that they remain uninterested in the actual content of messages - more the communication pathway between individuals - the Guardian ponders whether this anxiety is "rampant paranoia or is there a case for monitoring social networks?"

Perhaps popular fears are put most succinctly by Ian Dunt, who says: "If two terrorist suspects are emailing each other frequently...it's difficult to believe security services won't try to discover the content of the messages. Somewhere in the legislation - either in an amendment to RIPA or a clause of the communications data bill - there will be a power, in 'exceptional circumstances' to read content. And 'exceptional circumstances' tend to become much less exceptional than originally intended."

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